


Not the Fault in Our Stars

by Lihai



Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 20:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lihai/pseuds/Lihai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorento and Thetis have their own ways of watching over Julian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not the Fault in Our Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Poseidon Fortnight at stseiya-fanfics.livejournal.com.

"What do you know about ninja?" Julian asked as he walked Sorento out of the house and to the veranda.

"Only what I've learned from the popular media," Sorento said, unruffled. "Why? Are they going to be your next dinner guests?"

Today being the last day of Sorento's Athens concert, he had decided to join Julian for dinner, since Julian had assured Sorento that he was always welcome at the Solo manor. The Poseidon episode had been wiped clean from Julian's memory, one of the reasons Sorento enjoyed these meetings. There would be no mention of the times spent in the sea palace, no possibly awkward silences. The only people at the table would be the massively talented flutist and the patron who discovered him and introduced him to the music industry.

Julian smiled politely. "No. But there's this funny thing that reminds me of them."

"Oh?"

"You know how some powerful families in ancient Japan supposedly had loyal ninja to protect them?"

Sorento nodded. His limousine was already waiting for him on the driveway. Owning the car had always felt like an affectation to him, not even a necessity. Tomorrow he would persuade his manager to exchange the limo for another, less ostentatious car.

"That's what I've suspected lately," Julian said. "That I have my own personal protector. A girl."

An alarm bell chimed at the back of Sorento's mind, erasing all thoughts of new cars. "You lost me at personal protector."

"Once, when I couldn't sleep, I walked along the beach, and could've sworn someone was walking near me. I could tell it was a girl from her silhouette. Except that'd mean she was walking across water. Curious, isn't it?"

Was tonight the last of those peaceful dinners, then? "You were exhausted or half-dreaming," Sorento offered without much hope.

The suggestion did not rankle on Julian as Sorento had expected. "No, I was wide awake. That wasn't the only time I felt her presence, either. Twice I caught her shadow outside my window, before that beach walk. But I could tell she meant me no harm."

By now they had reached Sorento's car. He knew he should get in and away from the house, leave this matter to Thetis. But he had one more question to ask. "Ninja live in Japan and this is Greece. Whoever that girl is, if she wants to introduce herself, she would. Anyway, why are you telling me all this?"

This time Julian's grin was more sincere. "Because I knew you'd come up with a sensible advice."

Her business, Sorento decided, all hers, not mine. When the car glid through the open gate, Sorento caught one last glimpse of Julian. He was striding back to the veranda, starlight settling like silver specks on his suit. After that Sorento did not see him again for another year.

*

Convincing the bodyguards that he would be fine on his own was an art Julian has mastered since an early age. There was also a tacit understanding that the bodyguards would watch him from afar, since Julian did not want his parents to accuse them of neglecting their duty. Compromises aside, he was usually allowed to roam the premises as long as he remained within it.

His family practically owned the strip of beach where he took his night jaunts, so he feared neither tourists nor random drifters. A benign wind blew the short hairs off his forehead as he strolled across the sand. Then an idea struck him and he edged sideways until he was shin-deep in the water. On their post, the bodyguards would have stiffened with surprise and trained their binoculars harder on him.

"Hey," he stage-whispered, "are you there? Please come out. I just want to talk to you."

His reply was a loud splash. He paused, both eager and apprehensive. Then a human shadow rose from the water. Its lower half flared out, skirt-like, with no sign of a tail. Julian held his breath, not a little awed.

"No one sees me but you." Her sweet, clear voice together with Sorento's music would have made a haunting song. "Not even your attendants."

"Can I look at you?"

"Yes."

His stomach clenched briefly as he turned his head. She was strikingly pretty, with sea-sprayed blond hair that fell to her waist. He had imagined mermaids to be unselfconsciously bare-chested, but she wore some sort of a red armor. A warrior of the sea. Suddenly he was uncertain that she would do something as banal as protect him.

She noticed him staring at her armor. "The Scales aren't sealed away," she said, as though that explained everything. "Not that we have much power when our lord is not here... But I can see that you don't remember."

"Tell me why you keep following me," he blurted out, then was mortified. The heir to the Solo house was supposed to have better manners than this.

"I don't." If her answer had the slightest hint of a reproach, he missed it. "Not all the time. I keep an eye on you every now and then, nothing more. You rescued me when we were both very young, and this is my small token of gratitude."

"Keep an eye on me," he repeated. "You mean I'm in some sort of danger."

She looked sad at the last word. "Not danger. Let's just call it a latent predicament." 

His sleeves were rolled halfway up; her fingers brushed against his hand, sending shivers down his feet and conjuring disturbing images of an endless rain. Foams boiled around her while she began to dissolve. At the sight of this, he felt an irrational urge to reach out and hold her arms to keep her solid.

"We'll see each other again, won't we?" It was almost an order; he was desperate to keep her here, to fire more questions at her.

"Master Julian, I shall always keep you safe." She lowered herself into the foams, smiling up at him. "In the meantime, we tread our separate paths." Water swirled over her head, gentle yet possessive, and then she was gone. 

He stepped back, alone once more, the beach emptier than before. His breath came out fast, too loud to his own ears. Gradually it slowed down as the encounter sank in. A genuine sea creature! It was amazing, but more than that - it meant there was someone who might be able to shed a light on those pieces of memory he lost at sixteen. His anxiety vanished, replaced by excitement. The next time they met, he would ask her to share the pieces that she surely kept.

*

The next morning Julian woke up with a roaring headache, having dreamed of a young woman submerged in a chamber of water and singing to defy him. Except he knew she was no dream.


End file.
